an amusing and practical approach to home making, diy-ing and entertaining!

There are two things in this life that you will learn I am absolutely OBSESSED with [maybe a few more than two..] but, the MAIN things: Burlap and Mason Jars.

I originally came across the idea of a Burlap Table Runner on Etsy and it quickly became top priority on the DIY list.

I learned previously that burlap is a really smelly fabric and should be aired out for at least 24 hours before you use it in a project, so learn from my mistakes!

Materials Used:

Burlap Fabric
Lace Fabric
Natural Coloured Thread

Tools Required:
Sewing Machine
Iron
Tape Measure
Marker
I ordered the burlap fabric from an Etsy store and it arrived in about 2 weeks. The lace was left over from a previous project, as was the thread.

Always try to use the factory edge of your burlap fabric [shown above] in your project, it saves you time and gives you a straight edge to work with. Burlap isn’t always perfectly cut so when purchasing the fabric, ensure the weave is even with the cut.

First, I measured the length of my table and added 4 inches. 2 for the inseams and 2 to hang over the edge. My table was 5 ft 11 ½ in which meant I measured and cut my burlap fabric at 6ft 3 ½ in.

I decided to make the runner 16in wide and added 1 more inch for the inseam which meant I marked and cut at 17in. *If you are not using a factory edge you will want to allow for 2 inseams and give yourself an extra inch than I did.*

I then ironed out the wrinkles and marked a 1in inseam along the long edge of the burlap fabric. I folded the fabric in, pinned and ironed along that edge and then fed it through the machine to match the factory edge.I measured, marked and cut the lace fabric at 7in long and 18in wide.

I marked, folded and pinned the short edges of the lace fabric and fed them through the machine as well. Lace fabrics can be tricky to sew! I found that loosening the tension and keeping the foot up helped.

Lastly, I pinned the two fabrics together, sewed them with the machine and trimmed all the long strings!

I just LOVE the burlap and lace together; does it not look so rustic yet pretty and chic?

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Things are still quite wet here in Muskoka so I’ve decided to dedicate this day to the blog and my craft room!

Last Saturday Wes and I had the pleasure of attending a family memorial dance back in my hometown, Cobourg Ontario. The Dance for Hope is put on in loving memory of my Auntie Kim who passed of breast cancer 5 years ago. All money generated from the dance is donated to the Pedal for Hope, an organization from Peterborough, Ontario that creates awareness and supports research for children with cancer.

To show our support we decided to take on a project and create a bench up-cycled from an old twin-sized headboard to put in the silent auction at the dance. The original idea came from a friend who started her own recycled furnishing business, Amber Scripture at Shab ta Fab– check out her Facebook page!

I found the headboard at the Muskoka Restore for $8 and purchased the rest of the materials from Home Depot.

First. I washed and sanded the headboard while Wes built the bench frame. I sanded where I wanted to create a distressed look and stained those areas afterwards.

Once Wes finished building the bench frame, I sanded the rough edges and stained, again, where I wanted to create the distressing.

I spray painted the headboard while the stain on the bench frame dried and then let the headboard dry while I spray painted the bench. Once everything was painted and dry we fastened the two pieces together by pre-drilling, gluing and screwing.

I lightly sanded the areas I wanted to distress and VOILA! A cute front hall bench with room for storage!

All together we spent about 3 hours of our time and $40. At the silent auction, the bench sold for $73 so we were both quite pleased with our contribution and creation 🙂

This is where you’ll conveniently be able to keep all of your family and home’s important information. Obviously I didn’t come up with the idea my self- there are plenty of printable sheets for the making of a home binder on the internet and other blogs.

I did try to collaborate all of the key ingredients I found out there into this handy dandy collection, but if there is anything you think I should add, leave a comment and I’ll consider adding it down the road!

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Our mailbox needed some serious love. I found the poor thing knocked over by the snow plow for the third time this month and decided it was time to give it the attention it was screaming for!

Here it is before:

I made a trip to ‘trusty ol’ Wal Mart’ and picked up two cans of “Hammered Copper” spray paint (the exterior stuff), a can of cheap “white” spray paint and a package of “peel and stick” letters and numbers. I decided to go with the “Hammered Copper” because I liked that it was sort of rustic and thought it would hide some of the rust and imperfections well!

I first prepped the mailbox by sanding a cleaning the surface and sprayed the area the letters w

ould reveal with the white spray paint.

I let the white spray paint dry a few hours before peeling and sticking the stickers so that they wouldn’t peel the white paint. While it was drying I laid out the stickers in their places so that the spacing was centered.

Once the stickers were adhered I sprayed the “Hammered Copper” spray paint by using long blasts about

10-12 inches away from the mailbox. I repeated these steps so that both sides of the mailbox were identical and finished it off by spraying the top, back and door flap the same way.

Here it is after:Looks pretty darn good doesn’t it?

I’m going to let the paint dry overnight and get Wes to reinforce it to it’s post at the end of the driveway tomorrow, so you’ll have to come back then for the updated finale!

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For Christmas this year Wes bought me my precious Kitchen Aid stand mixer. Let me have a moment to gush about how much I love it and it’s way of making things look and taste ten times better..Mmm!

Wes is my boyfriend by the way- he’s equally amazing! I’m sure he’ll love that I’m comparing him to the mixer.

Anyways, we have been renovating our home over the past year and have neglected to do much in the kitchen- which is silly since some of us spend A LOT of time in there. That was until I got the mixer! It just didn’t look right sitting upon an old, desperate looking counter.

First we removed the electrical outlets and the old back splash. And disconnected the faucet and removed the sink- the grunge under the lip of sink was NOT pretty so I soaked it for a few minutes with water and vinegar and wiped it clean.

We decided to cut the edge of the counter square to make it easier to tile and removed the drawers so they weren’t in the way of the saw.

Wes glued and screwed 2 strips of plywood to the edge of the cut counter to match up with back splash.

Next, we laid out our tiles in the pattern that we wanted and Wes made the cuts that were necessary. We used pennies rather than tile spacers to get a thinner grout line.

While Wes finished making cuts I started to mix the mortar. This is a messy, tedious step! Especially when you don’t have a concrete mixer attachment for your drill. You want the consistency of peanut butter, but I’m telling you- that stuff is heavy to mix by hand! I was even tempted to whip it up in the stand mixer, but shot that idea down fast after envisioning cupcakes iced in mortar.

We then spread the mortar and and set the tiles!

By the end of Day 1 we had the counter top tiled and the mortar cleaned off the tops- another time consuming messy job!

But the end result was nearing!

We started Day 2 by laying out the pattern for the back splash and again, making the necessary cuts. This was a little more time consuming as there were a lot more cuts because of the detailed design pattern. We went with square tiles separated with a thin band and finished off the day by cleaning and preparing the grout lines by removing the mortar that seeped up the sides of the tile and into the cracks.

Day 3 we began by sealing the tile with a high gloss sealer and waited the recommended hour before grouting. We sealed before grouting because we found that most DIY sites said this step would help to make the grout clean up easier and since we were using a matte tile and wanted more of a glossy finish we figured doing this would help us achieve our desired “look”.

Mixing the grout was a lot easier then mortar as the consistency needed to be more like mayonnaise rather than peanut butter.

I don’t care what anyone tells you- grout is not easy to clean! The less mess you make while trying to fill the gaps the better, obviously! If you’re not professional tilers, which we definitely are NOT I would certainly recommend you only grout a 3 by 3 section and clean the tiles as you go- otherwise you will spend HOURS of your Sunday evening cleaning and scrubbing, and cleaning and scrubbing and cleaning and scrubbing..

We found that having one of us clean the tiles with a damp sponge and the other following behind with a dry cloth really helped to remove that grout “haze”.

The best way to test if your grout is dry is to press your thumb nail into it- if it leaves a mark it’s not dry, if it doesn’t than you’re ready to seal!

We used a grout sealer ‘spray’ from Home Depot to saturate the grout lines and wiped away the excess with a damp cloth.

The high gloss finishing seal that we put on the tiles at the end really boosted the color and gave us that wet-glossy look we were going for and since we had put a coat on before grouting, we only needed one more to “seal the deal”!!

Isn’t it lovely?! I am so impressed with the end result AND the fact that my mixer now has a beautiful space to call home.

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This past week I’ve been so stressed about what bills are due, which have been paid and how much money we’ll come out of this month with. I’m sure a lot of you are feeling that way after the holiday’s too! So, I’ve created a budget and finances planner for our family and thought I’d adapt it a little so that I could share it with you! I got the idea from Kelly and her Complete Guide to Imperfect Homemaking– she’s so inspirational and ORGANIZED!

Remember, the free printables are only available for 30 days so make sure you get them while they’re free!